Wildcat Whip with Tom Leach, Jeff Piecoro & Dick Gabriel pre South Carolina

Wildcat Whip with Tom Leach, Jeff Piecoro & Dick Gabriel pre South Carolina

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Wildcat Whip that Gabriel Tom Leech's Jeff
Picoro on location. Let us talk, of course about the
Wildcats taken on South Carolina.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
What should we take away?

Speaker 1 (00:11):
First, Let's talk about the Game Cocks.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
I don't know you can say they should have lost,
but they might have.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Lost that game, though, do you if not for the
turnover the fourth turnover they forced and got a cheap
touchdown out of.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
It to save themselves, and we had to pay a
lot more attention to it. That's true. We had weather
issues of our own to deal with.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
The Kentucky Yeah, I mean they were in trouble in
their defense, which is supposed to be the strength of
their team, got them the turnovers, and that's what has
really played Kentucky in the last two years, really the
last three years. They've turned it over eight times against
South Carolina. Last year it was three zero three turnovers

(00:54):
for Kentucky, and so they have had issues with turnovers
these last two years. When they lost the game to
the Game Cocks, Yeah, and I get a little what's
the annoyed I guess themed with the South Carolina side.
You two in a row, well and three of the
last time. Two of those Kentucky didn't have its quarterback right.

(01:17):
The one game Lewis was completely out and the other
game you know saw your Smith was playing on the
shoulder and a third maybe and if if they had
played Lynn Bowden earlier it started that experiment earlier, South
Carolina wouldn't have won.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
And I was with you.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
I think it was a postgame show or maybe the
Monday Night Show when Mark suits glumly said, maybe I
should have played Lynn earlier, like knowing what might have happened.

Speaker 4 (01:47):
Yeah, but if you look back at this game last
week for South Carolina, it's they were so lucky and Odie,
who's kicking themselves two fumbles inside their own ten yard lives?

Speaker 2 (01:58):
What did have been?

Speaker 4 (01:59):
Because now you're in a team that couldn't move the
ball for squad against Tade's Creek's defense and they only
have to go eight yards and seven yards to score touchdowns.
Anytime that happens, it's tough for you to win. I
like the way Odeu's defense. It was kind of like
what you always said about Clayburn's event, but not break thing.

(02:20):
Four field goals in the game for South Carolina because
they couldn't punch it in. I think, look, you're gonna
make your most improvement between game one and game two.
And for Ladarius Sellers, he at sometimes was lost in
the quarterback freshman.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
He is a monster.

Speaker 4 (02:37):
He reminds me a lot of an Anthony Richardson, a
smaller Cam Newton. He's six foot four, two hundred and
forty two pounds, so he's a monster out there. But again,
he wears glasses inside of his helmet too, and it's
just kind of funny looking.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
But there were times where he and his receivers were.

Speaker 4 (02:54):
On the same page at all. He only completed ten
passes the entire game for fourteen yards.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
So but you know, they were lucky to win that game.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
And South Carolina doesn't have the guy that killed Kentucky
last year as Ave your Lagette.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
He had six catches and think two touchdowns.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
In the game, and you know he was a guy
they really struggled with, and so they've got a lot
of Yeah, it's really similar that most of their question
marks or on the offensive side, as was the case
with Kentucky coming into the season.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, week one to week two, you know there's always
it and Jeff that's not a cliche.

Speaker 4 (03:31):
Because you get you know, you can't replicate the speed
of a game in practice, and especially now, you can't
hit the way you're gonna hit in a game in practice.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
You just can't do it.

Speaker 4 (03:42):
Or else you get to a game, you'd have forty guys,
it'd be the pin thirty again. But yes, you improved
because you find out game speed. The great thing is
Kentucky has so many returner players and that's what helps him.
You get really ten starters on defense coming back. You
add duelss to that and you know, look, you got
to love it. Guys who played a lot of football
on the defensive side. The offensive side is the one

(04:04):
that worries me a bit, and it's the right side
of the line. I thought Eli like Cox. You know
the left side both Cox boys and played well.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
The right side had a little trouble.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
And Minci he's got to hold his weight this week
because their best players are Kyle Kinnard end and really
Deebo Williams over there on that side.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
They're good upfront. This freshman played a great game for him, a.

Speaker 4 (04:28):
Backup monster at six six d and fifty pounds freshman,
he plays end.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
He'll be over Midci, but I think that he has
to get better.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
If he doesn't, you're gonna have to put a tight
end on that side to help, and that takes a player.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Away from the passing game that Kentucky did so well.

Speaker 5 (04:47):
Maybe a running back to chip yep, if you have
to ye any other thing you might tell.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Charles Walker on my radio show we were talking about
this today, he said, the other thing you could do
is move the pocket and just have to worry about
one of those edge guys by rolling to one.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Side, because he looked really good last week moving.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah, he throws it really I thought my Brock Vandergert
throws it really well all the run and really good
when they call him off schedule. Play es basically with
you know, you're just kind of freelancing a little bit.
And I had done a little reading about Brock just
kind of what was that he was a five star?
What were they saying about him coming out of high school?
And there were two of the things that he really

(05:28):
throws well on the run and he can you know,
make something happen out of a situation that kind of
get scrambled up, and we saw him do that, and
you know, I thought it was a good certainly first
at a grim locked onto a couple of receivers, Like
the first interception was a tip ball, but you.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Got away on that, and he got away with one
that could have been a pick. Su Oh that yeah,
that was that was the worst pass he threw.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
That.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
That was he was baited into that. I mean he thought, yeah, it.

Speaker 4 (05:56):
Was a little a little circle pattern kind of inside
the and he stared down his receiver and as soon
as he threw it, it was like, oh boy, you know,
the guy dropped him.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
But I just remember the Munich City ball.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yes last year, not to make light of it, but
you called those picks as the ball was coming out
of the quarterback hand, so you can see some of those.

Speaker 4 (06:17):
But again that I think that has to do with
the speed of the game too, and that wasn't an
SEC team.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
But he'll learn. I mean, look, here's the other thing.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
The guy hadn't played snaps like this three and a
half years, so he's knocking the rust off just like
everybody else.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
Of course, you look back at the Southern Mits win,
but looking back at especially last year's Carolina game time
and you brought up coaches, will you uniformly say, oh,
we don't worry about well, you know players, you know, Jeff,
they do. And Giant Childrens was talking to us on Wednesday,

(06:52):
which is a defensive interview day, and he specifically mentioned,
you know, we remember what happened last year. We want
to a cone for that. I'm paraphrasing this year. Now
that goes away when they get hitting them out the
first time. But still when you talk about focus and
game prep, that matters.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, it does.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
And you know, Kentucky, I'm sure, as I was saying earlier,
they looked at a couple of the other times they've
lost to South Carolina said well, you know the Kentucky
quarterback wasn't available at these games or wasn't healthy this time.
That wasn't the case everybody. You know, everybody had all
their players. But Kentucky, as I said, was minus three
in turnovers, and one of those came. You know, they

(07:33):
like every down I was looking back every down ten.
Nothing came back when I head fourteen to ten, Wildcats did.
And then South Carolina goes down scores in the fourth
quarter to go ahead on a pass to look at
and then at that point Kentucky's got time to get
back down the field and they're around midfield, plenty of
time to get into field goal range at worst and
perhaps tie it up, and you've got a very reliable kicker.

(07:56):
And then they got a strip sack at midfield and
it's over. Yeah, Jeff, I like one other editions of that.
We're all around after postgame and Mark Stoops will go
do the media news conference and then he'll come to
us for the UK Network show. And he came out
of that news conference and he just kind of fell
down on the stoop of a stuff there outside of

(08:17):
a door in this alley way underneath Williams Price Stadium,
and it was as dejected, I think as they had
ever seen him, because he obviously knew that was a
game they were the better team, even though South Couldy
was playing. You know, it's best football probably of the
season at that time, and you know then you you know,
it was just a very frustrating loss man, I think.

Speaker 5 (08:38):
And that media room at Williams Brice is across sort
of an internal roadway under the stadium where the golf
carts come and go, and so when he.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Hunkered down basically with literally with his head in his hands,
all the media folks were walking past him, so everybody
saw that just how dejected he was with good reason.

Speaker 4 (09:00):
Look look how the year ended and and what happened
to this team. I mean, you still got to go
to a nice bowl, but you get that one more win.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Would you have gone?

Speaker 4 (09:08):
You know?

Speaker 2 (09:08):
That's that's the thing.

Speaker 4 (09:10):
You look back as a as a player and a coach,
and you think, you let that game slip away, and
look what happens to you.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Remember, this is a team that went to the Citters.

Speaker 4 (09:20):
Bowl, had a great, great season and played a bad
Tennessee team and lost that game.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Had they won that game, they would have been in
the Sugar Bowl. Yes, and they lost to a bad
Tennessee team. Yeah, this was the Allen and team. Yeah
we're good. Yeah, It's just you think back of those
after you're done to yougo should have? Would have?

Speaker 3 (09:46):
You know, you look back on this series because for
a long time with Spurrier, South Carry, and even with
Lou Hols, especially some of the Holtz games, it was
a lot of times where you thought, how did Kentucky
not win this?

Speaker 2 (09:59):
And dropped an interception right before.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
And then Whispurrier they continue to control the series it
was a long stretch. Kentucky finally beats him in twenty
ten on the pass from hardline to cop and then
still but then you go back, you lose eleven, twelve, thirteen, three, more,
fourteen Kentucky Joe Jojo Camp rolling through them on the
wildcat formation. And the great thing about that is Neil

(10:23):
Brown was like, if you can't stop it, we're gonna
keep calling it. Yeah, he try how smart him?

Speaker 1 (10:27):
So Jojo on my show locally here this week, and
he tipped his cap to Neil Brown. He said, what
about Neil Brown just staying way he spent especially, he said,
when we were down fourteen points twice, Yeah, and Neil
Brown stayed.

Speaker 4 (10:41):
With the will And again, guys, this is why Sellers
is so important to contain. He carid about twenty two
times and i'bout sixteen seventeen.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Of those were called plays.

Speaker 4 (10:54):
So they're basically running wildcap because you know, you don't
account for the quarterback in the running game.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
That's why when you run wild cat, it's like, oh,
wait a minute, you got a spy him, though, don't you?

Speaker 1 (11:05):
You do?

Speaker 4 (11:06):
And and I think that that's huge to me in
the game. I think Kentucky has to control the big
running back. I mean, you got a kid that's two
hundred and thirty pounds in Rahim sanderback from Yeah Rocket,
and that kid's a load. He carried twenty four times,
so you might think, well, you really wanted to pass.

(11:26):
Kentucky's strength is the rush defense. So it's strength to
get strength, and it's gonna be really exciting to me
to see how Kentucky tries to defend. Now, you always
hear me say set the edges right. You know, if
if if Sanders is gonna run, you've got to keep
a norse in the pocket. Make him run up the
middle where the big grizzly bear is. He doesn't want
to run up there. He wants to get around the corners.

(11:48):
So it's gonna be huge day for JJ on one
side and either Frearby or Alex Safari on the other
side of the.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yah.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
He really was, but he's not how big, see, so
he's going to be a little a little loud man
when it comes.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
To he's under size in their quarterback. Yeah, exactly, that's
my point.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
But he makes plays. It just makes plays. We talked
so much about what's going on in the past with
South Carolina.

Speaker 5 (12:18):
This is a true rivalry, I mean, and this is
what I like about it, because this game means so
much to both of these teams, a winnable game to
both of these teams. And even now I've talked about
it all week. Now the divisions have gone away, I
think it's even more important because if you're trying to
work your way into the playoff, we've talked about it,

(12:40):
it's gonna be tougher to get to Atlanta than it
is the playoff.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
You can't lose this one, or if you do, it's
tough to make up for it.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
I kind of break this season down with the way
the schedule is.

Speaker 3 (12:50):
You've got four games where you're going to be a
solid favorite, right the three non conference games other than
Louisville and the Bandy game since it's Alexion, although any
a nice week one, so it will be as big
a favorite maybe as I thought. Then you have four
games where you'd be a significant underdog Texas, Old Miss Georgia, Georgia,
and Tennessee. Three of those on the road. The other

(13:13):
four are what you call kind of the toss up games,
and so you've got to take and three of those
four are in Lexington, so you've got to take business,
keep you know, your home turf own that and take
care of those games, and then if you can pull
off an upset or two or whatever, that's how you

(13:33):
do something really special.

Speaker 4 (13:34):
Remember we always said that those The Mississippi State game
was such a huge game and the Florida game such
a huge game because if you can beat Florida Missippi State,
then you're probably gonna get to eight wins. Well, it's
kind of the same thing, but those teams have changed now.
I think it's South Carolina and Auburn. And the great
thing is you get both of those two teams at home.
So now, if you win those four games that you're
talking about and then those two, that's six, and now

(13:57):
you all gotta do is win two other games of
those other to get that eight win plateau.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
I think with the schedule Kentucky has and basically.

Speaker 4 (14:07):
Any team in the SEC, if you can get to
nine wins, you've got a shot of getting into the
twelve team playoffs with three.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Losses, especially given the fact that if you do lose
those games, likely they are the top five team.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
That's right, That's that's what I mean, and if you're
in Kentucky and there'd be you know, other teams would
have the same case to make. If you get to nine,
is that that's knocking off one top Texas an.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
Ole miss or a Georgia team, or ten what else?
Fourteenth probably nationally ranked Louisville team.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
It's funny that we we all talk about these things.
And I thought about this last week with a Southern
mis game. I wonder what the odds would have been
for Kentucky to win seven games in twenty sixteen if
they lost the opener to Southern biss great and then
got bubbled at Florida. So you know, somebody turns out
to be not as good as you thought. That's later
on on the schedule, and uh, you know, more than

(15:04):
more than one.

Speaker 4 (15:05):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
It is funny how it kind of can turn around sometimes,
But if you look at it on paper, this is
one that you really need to get.

Speaker 4 (15:14):
So my question to you guys is this, in my take,
in only paying the two quarters in five minutes of
the second half, we didn't see we didn't see whim.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
Set at all.

Speaker 4 (15:23):
So he still hasn't taken a stap And I thought
that was huge because they were going to use him
and it was going to be a keyp it.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Now maybe that's a surprise that you can throw on
this team, yep.

Speaker 4 (15:32):
But also some of those guys that you wanted to
get in and rotations then get a snap, And that's
the tough thing to think that.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
Sir Addison was waiting to get his chance when the
game was called turned out for good and with a
whim set for example, you'd at least like to get
him a little, ideally a little a few snaps just
to get comfortable taking the snap doing it in this offense,
running a couple of the plays, uh big before you
have to do it in conference play.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
But obviously that's kind of what they're looking at now.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
Fortunately he's played a lot of college football and started
a lot of games at Rutgers. But as you said,
new offense.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
To run home stage your freshman running backs exactly. Well,
I went in the SEC. I wanted to see Malachi.

Speaker 4 (16:15):
I wanted to see uh increase because really anthroony Is
is the main bat right tackle right now on the
offensive line behind Minci. So if there's one question mark
to me, it's right tackle with Mincy and him the sophomore.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
We haven't seen yet. I wonder if Ray, if they
wanted to do they go to Dylan Ray and make
him kind of.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
Like backs up, guards and tackles and he's just your
sixth o lineman and wherever you need him.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Tucky at ten point favorite Tom that too much? You think,
you know the experts everybody else's money.

Speaker 3 (16:50):
From that perspective. Yeah, it's first SEC game and South
Carolina is ill. This thirty eight players back, I believe
is the stat. I have to look this up again
in my notes. The second most I think returning players
in the country to Eastern Michigan in like thirty eight.

(17:11):
Michigan got thirty nine.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
I think that was right.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
You know, most of their defensive front they're too deep,
is all back from last year. So, you know, point being,
it's not a good it's a team that has a
good bit of experience and is it likely to to
you know, get.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Out about the platform. Yeah, ten, is that too much?
Jeff ten?

Speaker 4 (17:35):
If Kentucky plays the way Kentucky should play, I liked.
I thought the defense took a series or two to
get in groove. I thought that, uh that Bush and
Brock took a series or two to really get things going.
You had to call it early time out because the
play clock was run down. He had a couple more
snaps that were right down in one or two seconds.
But I thought as the game went on that got

(17:56):
better about Kentucky's defense got better as a game went on.
Kentucky strength is also a weakness of the South Carolina team,
and that's I thought. Kentucky gave up on third down,
especially early in the game. We're thinking, oh my goodness,
it's it's gonna start all over again. But they got
a lot better, So we'll see this. South Carolina wasn't

(18:17):
good on third downs at all this past week. That
eight percent, that's bad, you know, and if they're that
way against Kentucky could be a long day for the
For the.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
Game talks, well, whatever happens, you'll hear it on the
UK radio. Now we're Tom Leach and Jeppichor upstairs. I'll
be downstairs and we're gonna have nice weather.

Speaker 4 (18:33):
We here.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Thanks for joining us, CEE you next week on the
wildcare Wheeler